Montreal Jews rely on non-Jewish academics, writers and filmmakers to present and even explain, in French, Jewish realities to the Quebecois public and within Francophone academia. The considerable number of publications on Jewish themes, both in fiction and non-fiction, written in French by non-Jews is certainly unequaled in the Francophone world and most likely in the West, contends writer Victor Teboul. But do these works encourage or dissuade critical assessment of Quebec and of Quebec–Jewish relations, asks Tolerance.ca’s editor, whose most recent book also questions Quebecois identity.

Victor Teboul’s latest work Les Juifs du Québec : In Canada We Trust. Réflexion sur l’identité québécoise(L’ABC de l’Édition, paperback, $24,95; ebook, $14,99) explores Quebec’s history and argues that Jews and other minorities are absent from la Belle province’s memory because they do not share the French Canadians’ struggle to survive as a French-speaking nation.

As a francophone from la Belle Province, I would like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) - and I mean specifically the English network of Radio-Canada - to cover more extensively Quebec. When I watch the news and other programs on the television network of the CBC, I feel as if Quebec has already separated from Canada.

''On being a Francophone Jewish writer in Quebec'' is a first-hand account of what it is like to be a Francophone intellectual in Montreal's largely anglophone Jewish environement. It was published while I held the position of Executive Director of the Canada-Israel Committee's Quebec Bureau, the principal Canadian Israeli lobby.

My Mythe et images du Juif au Québec denouncing misconceptions about Jews and about Israel among Quebec literati had appeared four years earlier. My mandate at the CIC was to promote Israel among the French-Canadian elite. The task was not easy as during that period the war in Lebanon broke out.

''On being a Francophone Jewish writer in Quebec'' is now part of Essays onQuebec nationalism and the Jews, for more information, please clik HERE.

In December 1956, we left Alexandria along with a few thousand Egyptian-born Jews who held French and British passports, expelled from Egypt because of the Franco-British and Israeli campaign to discourage Nasser from nationalizing Egypt's own Suez Canal.